There are times when the judgment of the universe becomes inscrutable.\u00a0 At best.\u00a0 The complex interplay among our nature, our nurture and the actual facts muddies the whys of life.\u00a0 Always.\u00a0 It is no wonder that humans seek answers, we are pattern seekers, probers, wonderers, wanderers.\u00a0 Yet, there may be no answers.<\/p>\n
I know a family, a small nuclear family.\u00a0 A man, a woman, a daughter.\u00a0 Since January the full weight of heaven has fallen on their home.\u00a0 The man, in his fifties, a government employee, a sailor, an astronomer, a fixer.\u00a0 The woman, also in her fifties, a quirky domestic with an honesty and unflinchingness that marks her as\u00a0 unusual.\u00a0 The daughter, bright, also quirky, a maker of angel wings.\u00a0 A student of costume.\u00a0 A lover of the
\nRenaissance.\u00a0 Finished college early with a degree in history.<\/p>\n
In January the man had a spell, a stroke they thought at first.\u00a0 Some improvement.\u00a0 Another spell.\u00a0 An MRI.\u00a0 Neurological.\u00a0 Holes appeared.\u00a0 Demylenation, a stripping away of the insulating layer of the nerve fibers.\u00a0 At first, a guarded diagnosis.\u00a0 After a second and third episode.\u00a0 MS\u00a0 Multiple Sclerosis.<\/p>\n
Various treatments, but none working very well.\u00a0 Then, again some improvement physically.\u00a0 With the realization though that work had come to an end and life as he knew had vanished over night.\u00a0 The man has become sad, angry, depressed.\u00a0 He hits the dog with his cane.\u00a0 The dog will go to a new home this week.\u00a0 He wakes up at 4 in the morning and wants to argue.\u00a0 Considers suicide.\u00a0 Has gone from a detail guy, a traveler and friend to an invalid and a miserable invalid.<\/p>\n
Then.\u00a0 This week.\u00a0 The woman had a breast lump.\u00a0 A biopsy.\u00a0 Unclear.\u00a0 She will have to have a lumpectomy.\u00a0 The daughter.\u00a0\u00a0 A pre-cancerous condition in her cervix.\u00a0 Diagnosed this week.\u00a0 Requires surgery.<\/p>\n
It is as if the Old Testament God sat in his council with the advocate, Satan, and devised a series of tortures for this family.<\/p>\n
When I drive by their home, as I do from time to time, I think how normal it looks.\u00a0 There are no dark clouds, no forked lightning over just their home.\u00a0 A happy family could still live there.\u00a0 But doesn’t.<\/p>\n
There, in that bungalow, the existential curse has decided to make a house call on not just one, but all three.\u00a0 Death has reminded each of them that none of us\u00a0get permanent residency visas here.\u00a0 Yes,\u00a0we all live, all the time, under the curse.\u00a0 Death sits on our shoulder and counsels us.\u00a0 But part of the deal, the arrangement lies in his silence for some period, a long run of years, so we can collect ourselves, get to know this life, our Self, others.<\/p>\n
In this culture of health, exercise, vitamins illness can come as damnation, a perverse twist to the\u00a0news from the AMA or the frontiers of neurology or cardiology or vitaminology, that steady call to avoid smoking, fats, carbs, indolence, sloth and avarice.\u00a0\u00a0 By confronting us daily with new ways to improve our health we are instead, reminded with a dull drum that we are not healthy now and will have to engage in works righteousness:\u00a0 exercise, colonoscopy, good diet, dental hygeine.\u00a0\u00a0An ironic result opposite to the intentions of these well meaning puritans of science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are times when the judgment of the universe becomes inscrutable.\u00a0 At best.\u00a0 The complex interplay among our nature, our nurture and the actual facts muddies the whys of life.\u00a0 Always.\u00a0 It is no wonder that humans seek answers, we are pattern seekers, probers, wonderers, wanderers.\u00a0 Yet, there may be no answers. I know a … Continue reading The Judgment of the Universe<\/span>